Widespread Adoption

In surveying emerging single-stair legislation across the country, firefighters’ concerns have been the biggest barrier to adoption.

Before starting we worked to understand these concerns better, using them as the foundation to our approach. Building off of Seattle’s code, the design addresses these concerns in the following ways:

(Denver’s Capitol Hill, Station 8, has a truck with a 105’ rear-mount ladder. Denver has adequate hydrant capacity and quick fire department response times. The proposed building has fire sprinklers and properly fire-separated occupancies. All of these are essential factors for taller single-stair buildings.)

Credits

African Community Economic Development Corporation (ACEDONE), Community Outreach & Homeowner Engagement Consultant
Chess Engineering,
Civil Engineering
Croft,
Prefab Consultant & Straw Panel Provider
JGE Architecture + Design,
Design Advisor
LB Development Partners,
Development Consultant
Passive to Positive,
Sustainability Consultant
Pristine Engineers,
MEP-FP Engineering
RSE Associates,
Structural Engineering
Star Contracting Co,
Construction Management

Sustainability Features

From a sustainability perspective, the building is pursuing the following:

Compressed straw insulation: providing serious insulation while sequesting a significant amount of CO₂
All-electric building systems: providing energy through a renewable source
On-site stormwater retention: preventing runoff from overcharging the sewer infrastructure

Rental Equity?

While working on this project, we learned about Renting Partnerships. They’re an organization from Cincinnati who’ve developed a model in which long-term renters build wealth by participating in the upkeep of their community. The client is developing a related model with the hope that renters will be able to build equity (while complying with all state & federal affordable housing guidelines).

Courtyard Rowhomes

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Affordable missing middle housing for the city

Compact in size and high in quality. The Courtyard Rowhomes are carbon-banking, energy-conserving, community-supporting, adaptable houses that allow for as many living arrangements as their residents can imagine.

Two rows of five homes orient toward a shared courtyard. The courtyard is broken into several bands that facilitate circulation, social connection, and privacy. The central band allows feet and wheels to move freely. It's bracketed by each unit's dedicated outdoor space. These patios activate the courtyard and create a series of resident-defined possibilities: shared meals, playtime, group fitness, and more. Planters between the buildings and the patios keep neighbors at a comfortable distance and screen views.

Ground Floor Plan. Ten rowhomes on two single-family lots: five on the street side and five at the rear

Second Floor Plan

All of the units can be entered from the central courtyard. Kitchens face this space to foster social connection and buffer more private spaces

Resiliency & Sustainability

Every day, we wake up to troubling headlines about climate change. Unfortunately, many high-performance buildings rely on high-embodied carbon materials like foam insulation to achieve operational energy savings. What if we could replace those materials with ones that perform well, draw in and store carbon, naturally regenerate, and grow nearby?

The Courtyard Rowhomes are made from straw-filled prefabricated panels manufactured in a shop and brought to the site. Each panel has two rows of 2”x4” studs (a “double stud” wall), is filled with 12” of straw, and is wrapped with sheathing and weather control layers.

Other sustainability features include:

Concrete is reduced to a grade beam infilled by an insulated double-layer plywood “slab,” which significantly reduces carbon emissions
Ceiling heights are kept to 8’ to utilize standard lumber and maximize drywall yields
Downspouts feed below-grade cisterns to minimize runoff
Each room has at least two operable windows for cross-ventilation
Plumbing fixtures are near the water heater to lower energy use and
Solar panels could be installed on the flat-seam metal roof when the orientation merits it.

Pathway from the street to the courtyard

The siding follows the pitch of the roof

The space beneath the stairs can be used for storage

View through the kitchen to the living space and the rear entry

Universal Design & Aging-In-Place

The Courtyard Rowhomes incorporates Universal Design best practices like:

An on-grade entry
Zero or minimal thresholds at doors and flooring changes
Generous maneuvering clearances and knee space in kitchens and bathrooms
Wide doorways and hallways
Bathroom grab bars, and
Reachable controls throughout

Typically, these accommodations require more square feet (SF), which can be challenging when building footprints need to be smaller. To solve this problem, we worked diligently to overlap maneuvering clearances with circulation pathways.

One example: the 4’ x 4’ maneuvering clearance at the entry coincides with the landing at the bottom of the stairs. This consolidates the clearances, forms a generous entry, and creates a mudroom-like buffer into the main living space. Design moves like this help to create an accessible 867 net SF house that lives much larger than its small footprint would suggest.